WHITTIER – Joseph Magdaleno told his mother he would meet his girlfriend at a local park and left the house on Saturday afternoon.

That was the last time Christina Avina and Jose Naranjo saw their son alive.

Whittier police are still looking for the two men who chased and fatally stabbed the 21-year-old Whittier man. A bleeding Magdaleno collapsed in a stranger’s house and died. Officers don’t know yet the motive behind the attack.

“Senseless. Senseless. I don’t know why people are so cruel. Look what they did to us,” Avina said Tuesday.

“I felt like they took my heart and cut it out of my chest.”

Naranjo said it will be too difficult and sad to be in the house where his son was raised.

Magdaleno died of a stab wound to the chest, according to Lt. Larry Dietz of the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner.

Whittier police Officer Jason Zuhlke said Magdaleno was associated with a gang and his attackers are suspected gang members.

But his parents said their son was not a gang member.

He’s had minor run-ins with the law. Court records show he was convicted of being under the influence of a controlled substance on Feb. 8, 2007 and on Oct. 6, 2008, he was found guilty of fleeing from a pursuing officer and being under the influence of alcohol while in a vehicle. Deputies arrested him Jan. 15, 2009 and released him on a citation the next day.

Avina said last month’s arrest was for a traffic warrant and that deputies let her son go. In the 2008 incident, she said he didn’t have a license and had been drinking. She said he didn’t stop for the officer but was only going 25 mph.

Magdaleno recently worked at a warehouse in Santa Fe Springs but was laid off, according to Avina.

The Pioneer High School graduate has two sisters and was the father of a little girl who turns 5 today.

In elementary school, Magdaleno was in the Young Marines program. Avina said her son planned on joining the Marines but a lump under his arm turned out to be cancerous. He underwent an operation at City of Hope in Duarte three years ago.

Avina said Magdaleno was the type of guy that if you called him to get your yard mowed, he’d do it.

“My son was a good boy. He grew up here. He knew the people around here,” she said, adding that many people have been dropping by the house to pay their respects.

“They can’t believe my son was killed like this.”

On Saturday, Magdaleno met his 16-year-old girlfriend at a park, then decided to browse and shop in Uptown Whittier.

At 5:45 p.m., they were walking in the 12700 block of Wardman Street when two men approached.

“They got in front of him and asked, `Where are you from?’ He told them, `I’m from nowhere,”‘ said Avina, who got details of the incident from the girlfriend.

The two men allegedly said they were from a Whittier neighborhood. They told Magdaleno they would give him the opportunity to run.

According to police, Magdaleno and the girlfriend ran. The suspects caught up to Magdaleno and one of them stabbed him.

After the attack, the suspects headed south down an alley along Milton Avenue.

Magdaleno and the girl fled to the 7000 block of Milton Avenue where he ran into a house and collapsed. The resident called police and gave him CPR while waiting for the officers and paramedics. Magdaleno was later pronounced dead.

Zuhlke said Magdaleno didn’t know the people who lived in the house.

“He was just trying to find a place to hide, to get away from them. The girlfriend said he was already passing out,” Avina said.

She got a phone call from the hysterical girlfriend, who said her son had been shot and stabbed. She and Naranjo drove in search of the girl, who they spotted on Wardman Street.

They picked her up and headed to where they saw police. They weren’t allowed inside the house where their son sought refuge.

A crying Naranjo said he begged police to let him go and see his son but was denied.

“At the same time I was mad. They grabbed me this hard. I said, `Let me go. I want to see my son,”‘ he said.

They were told to sit on the curb and later in Naranjo’s car. An officer with a chaplain approached their vehicle.

“They told me my son was dead,” Avina said.

Donations for the funeral can be sent to the Joseph Magdaleno account established at Washington Mutual, 13103 E. Philadelphia St. in Whittier. The account No. is 494-265746-6.

The two suspects were described as Latinos in their 30s wearing dark-colored baseball caps. The one with the knife wore long shorts with high socks and a dark jersey with “LA” on the front in white letters. His companion wore long, dark-colored pants.

Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Whittier police at (562) 945-8250.

Ruby Gonzales started working for the company in 1991. Since then she has written about cities, school districts, crimes, cold cases, courts, the San Gabriel River, local history, anime, insects, forensics and the early days of the Internet when people still referred to it as the "information superhighway." Her current beat includes breaking news, crimes and courts for the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Pasadena Star News and Whittier Daily News. When not in crime reporter mode, she frequents the remaining bookstores in the San Gabriel Valley, haunts craft stores or gets dragged to eateries by a relative who is a foodie.

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